BAKU (News.az)-A renewed war over Nagorno-Karabakh will result in a nightmare scenario for Azerbaijan, grinding its oil-based economy to a halt and bringing an end to international investment in the country, according to the head of a think tank centered around former Soviet issues.

Konstantin Zatulin, the director of the CIS Countries Institute, made his prediction during an interview with Voice of America focused on the trilateral talks between the presidents of Armenia, Azerbaijan and Russia held in Sochi on Monday.

Zatulin painted a bleak picture of what lay ahead for Armenia and Azerbaijan, saying that "he sees no prospects" for the resolution of the longstanding conflict, mediated by the OSCE Minsk Group.

"Official Baku and Yerevan have different views about the final results of the current negotiations," he said, predicting that the impasse could lead only to one side opting to use force to resolve the situation.

Zatulin noted, however, that success for Azerbaijan in a new war is "not obvious" and will "cause great economic problems and a pulling out of international investments for which Azerbaijan is striving today."

Negotiations are better than war, he said they support the level of trust and preserve hope for the future peaceful way of the conflict settlement.

The analyst presented a possible scenario in case negotiations completely break down, describing a situation in which Russia, the US, and the EU "dictate conditions of a final settlement to Baku and Yerevan."

But the success of such a move is unlikely, he noted. "First of all the conflicting parties can refuse to fulfill the provisions of the leading superpowers and second, the regional superpowers-urkey and Iran-may declare their own special interest."